Hi,I have a simple application that needs a wireless transmitter to wake up every 5 minutes, read the ADC, transmit the value, then go back to sleep. Battery life will be critical, thus the sleep cycle necessity. I'd like to purchase the Xbee units from you to do this, but I'd like to know up front if I will need a microprocessor to tell the xbee (transmitter) what to do.

The receiver end is much simpler because battery life will not be an issue.

Ok, I finally got around to getting the Xbees up and running, but now I need to determine how much battery I'll need. I can measure the current during sleep, but I don't know how much battery power is used during the wakeup-transmit cycle. The datasheet says around 50mA on transmit, but I don't know how long that transmit lasts, and thus, how to calculate the life of the battery with the 5 minute sleep cycle I have planned.

Does anybody have information that would help me with this calculation?

With only one reading per cycle, the transmit time will probably be determined by the minimum packet size. I don't know that off the top of my head, but the folks over at the Digi forum could probably locate it quicker than I could.http://www.digi.com/support/forum/